80 ideas
| 22611 | Metaphysics can criticise interpretations of science theories, and give good feedback [Ingthorsson] |
| 17651 | Without words or other symbols, we have no world [Goodman] |
| 17652 | Truth is irrelevant if no statements are involved [Goodman] |
| 18395 | Sets are mereological sums of the singletons of their members [Lewis, by Armstrong] |
| 15496 | We can build set theory on singletons: classes are then fusions of subclasses, membership is the singleton [Lewis] |
| 15500 | Classes divide into subclasses in many ways, but into members in only one way [Lewis] |
| 15499 | A subclass of a subclass is itself a subclass; a member of a member is not in general a member [Lewis] |
| 15503 | We needn't accept this speck of nothingness, this black hole in the fabric of Reality! [Lewis] |
| 15498 | We can accept the null set, but there is no null class of anything [Lewis] |
| 15502 | There are four main reasons for asserting that there is an empty set [Lewis] |
| 15506 | If we don't understand the singleton, then we don't understand classes [Lewis] |
| 15497 | We can replace the membership relation with the member-singleton relation (plus mereology) [Lewis] |
| 15511 | If singleton membership is external, why is an object a member of one rather than another? [Lewis] |
| 15513 | Maybe singletons have a structure, of a thing and a lasso? [Lewis] |
| 15507 | Set theory has some unofficial axioms, generalisations about how to understand it [Lewis] |
| 10191 | Set theory reduces to a mereological theory with singletons as the only atoms [Lewis, by MacBride] |
| 15508 | If singletons are where their members are, then so are all sets [Lewis] |
| 15514 | A huge part of Reality is only accepted as existing if you have accepted set theory [Lewis] |
| 15523 | Set theory isn't innocent; it generates infinities from a single thing; but mathematics needs it [Lewis] |
| 22609 | Philosophers accepted first-order logic, because they took science to be descriptive, not explanatory [Ingthorsson] |
| 15525 | Plural quantification lacks a complete axiom system [Lewis] |
| 15518 | I like plural quantification, but am not convinced of its connection with second-order logic [Lewis] |
| 15524 | Zermelo's model of arithmetic is distinctive because it rests on a primitive of set theory [Lewis] |
| 15517 | Giving up classes means giving up successful mathematics because of dubious philosophy [Lewis] |
| 15515 | To be a structuralist, you quantify over relations [Lewis] |
| 15520 | Existence doesn't come in degrees; once asserted, it can't then be qualified [Lewis] |
| 22629 | Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson] |
| 17656 | Being primitive or prior always depends on a constructional system [Goodman] |
| 17661 | We don't recognise patterns - we invent them [Goodman] |
| 15501 | We have no idea of a third sort of thing, that isn't an individual, a class, or their mixture [Lewis] |
| 15504 | Atomless gunk is an individual whose parts all have further proper parts [Lewis] |
| 22633 | Indirect realists are cautious about the manifest image, and prefer the scientific image [Ingthorsson] |
| 17659 | Reality is largely a matter of habit [Goodman] |
| 17657 | We build our world, and ignore anything that won't fit [Goodman] |
| 17654 | A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it [Goodman] |
| 22606 | Neo-Humeans say there are no substantial connections between anything [Ingthorsson] |
| 22631 | Properties are said to be categorical qualities or non-qualitative dispositions [Ingthorsson] |
| 15516 | A property is any class of possibilia [Lewis] |
| 22632 | Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson] |
| 22627 | Compound objects are processes, insofar as change is essential to them [Ingthorsson] |
| 22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |
| 14748 | The many are many and the one is one, so they can't be identical [Lewis] |
| 6129 | Lewis affirms 'composition as identity' - that an object is no more than its parts [Lewis, by Merricks] |
| 15512 | In mereology no two things consist of the same atoms [Lewis] |
| 15519 | Trout-turkeys exist, despite lacking cohesion, natural joints and united causal power [Lewis] |
| 15521 | Given cats, a fusion of cats adds nothing further to reality [Lewis] |
| 15522 | The one has different truths from the many; it is one rather than many, one rather than six [Lewis] |
| 14244 | Lewis only uses fusions to create unities, but fusions notoriously flatten our distinctions [Oliver/Smiley on Lewis] |
| 10660 | A commitment to cat-fusions is not a further commitment; it is them and they are it [Lewis] |
| 10566 | Lewis prefers giving up singletons to giving up sums [Lewis, by Fine,K] |
| 22612 | Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson] |
| 22625 | Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson] |
| 22620 | If causation involves production, that needs persisting objects [Ingthorsson] |
| 17653 | Things can only be judged the 'same' by citing some respect of sameness [Goodman] |
| 22636 | Every philosophical theory must be true in some possible world, so the ontology is hopeless [Ingthorsson] |
| 22638 | Worlds may differ in various respects, but no overall similarity of worlds is implied [Ingthorsson] |
| 15509 | Some say qualities are parts of things - as repeatable universals, or as particulars [Lewis] |
| 17660 | Discovery is often just finding a fit, like a jigsaw puzzle [Goodman] |
| 17658 | Users of digital thermometers recognise no temperatures in the gaps [Goodman] |
| 17650 | We lack frames of reference to transform physics, biology and psychology into one another [Goodman] |
| 17655 | Grue and green won't be in the same world, as that would block induction entirely [Goodman] |
| 17649 | If the world is one it has many aspects, and if there are many worlds they will collect into one [Goodman] |
| 22605 | Humeans describe the surface of causation, while powers accounts aim at deeper explanations [Ingthorsson] |
| 22607 | Time and space are not causal, but they determine natural phenomena [Ingthorsson] |
| 22608 | Casuation is the transmission of conserved quantities between causal processes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22621 | Causation as transfer only works for asymmetric interactions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22614 | Interventionist causal theory says it gets a reliable result whenever you manipulate it [Ingthorsson] |
| 22639 | Causal events are always reciprocal, and there is no distinction of action and reaction [Ingthorsson] |
| 22615 | One effect cannot act on a second effect in causation, because the second doesn't yet exist [Ingthorsson] |
| 22616 | Empiricists preferred events to objects as the relata, because they have observable motions [Ingthorsson] |
| 22617 | Science now says all actions are reciprocal, not unidirectional [Ingthorsson] |
| 22619 | Causes are not agents; the whole interaction is the cause, and the changed compound is the effect [Ingthorsson] |
| 22635 | People only accept the counterfactual when they know the underlying cause [Ingthorsson] |
| 22634 | Counterfactuals don't explain causation, but causation can explain counterfactuals [Ingthorsson] |
| 22637 | Counterfactual theories are false in possible worlds where causation is actual [Ingthorsson] |
| 22624 | A cause can fail to produce its normal effect, by prevention, pre-emption, finks or antidotes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22622 | Any process can go backwards or forwards in time without violating the basic laws of physics [Ingthorsson] |
| 22618 | In modern physics the first and second laws of motion (unlike the third) fail at extremes [Ingthorsson] |
| 22630 | If particles have decay rates, they can't really be elementary, in the sense of indivisible [Ingthorsson] |
| 22610 | It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson] |